


Halloween History

by Arytra



Series: Section 123 [18]
Category: Sesame Street (TV)
Genre: Even Penelope, Fluff, Halloween is a fun time, Mentions of consenting transfiguration, Multi, Playful Magic, everybody loves each other, everyone is happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 07:51:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16471688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arytra/pseuds/Arytra
Summary: Halloween is a special time on Sesame Street.  There's candy and decorations and a strong sense of family.  It's also an anniversary for when the Protectors got a hold of their powers a little bit better.





	Halloween History

**Author's Note:**

> So, the Protectors have two kinds of magic (excluding the living forever, healing, and that stuff): Skilled Magic and Balance Magic. Skilled magic is the magic that they were very good at and it gives them an edge. So, Maria being able to fix nearly everything is an example of skilled magic. Balance magic balances things out. If you are good at one thing, you need to be bad at something else in order to keep a balance in the world. Sometimes, it's connected to their skilled magic: David is a very good lawyer, but he also can't stop arguing. Sometimes it's not connected like Linda having the knowledge of everything in her library, but she randomly disappears and reappears. It's not possible to completely rid yourself of balance magic, but it can be controlled so that it's less bad... assuming that you have control of your skilled magic anyway.

Penelope stretched as she sat on the stairs of 123, watching as Barkley and Shadow played with the children on the street. She reached up and fixed the bow in on her right side as Sesame Street was completely decked out for the Halloween season. She stood up and made her way to Hooper’s Store. Owen would be arriving soon, hopefully, considering that the man’s balancing side of magic involved his horrible sense of time and timing. She waved to the kids and pulled out some candy and cookies she had made to give to them, making certain to set aside the two larger cabbage wrapped cookies for Snuffy and Alice as well as the bird seed one for Big Bird. She gave Cookie Monster as stern of a look as possible as she handed him three ghost shaped cookies. “No more. Otherwise, everyone won’t get one.”

“But cookies!” Cookie Monster tried to argue.

“Just. Three,” she said again. Cookie Monster looked disappointed, and she’d be watching him like a hawk later, but he did seem to agree. She’d already given Oscar the one to give to Irvine later. He’d complained about her being too nice. She’d complained that she’d had to make a special batch so take the silly cookie. She wouldn’t admit it, but it was kind of fun making cookies for grouches. She just threw everything she could think of in a bowl, mixed it up, and tossed it in the oven. She just had to remember not to test taste any of it.

She opened the door to Hoopers and pulled out the rest of the cookies and candy, setting them on the counter and smiling at Alan as she did so. “For the kids,” she said.

“Okay,” Alan answered, though both of them knew that half of that would be taken by the so-called adults on the Street. Fortunately, she’d made extra. She came a small wave to Chris as Gordon’s nephew attempted to keep up with the demands of the store. Both of the men had decided to wear 1950s soda jerk outfits which Mac, Harriet and Willy had found absolutely hilarious and Mr. Hooper had grumbled about. She knew that he amused, even if he wouldn’t admit it. It was a good prank.

Harriet was sitting in front of Mr. Hooper and even Penelope smiled a bit at their costumes. Harriet made for a spectacular Mary Poppins as she had the umbrella gently in her lap while Mr. Hooper was leaning over the counter to talk to her, dressed as his absolutely-not-his-girlfriend-mind-your-own-business’s counterpart in Bert. It was going to be a toss up for cutest couple’s costumes, however, considering that Willy and Mac had called Granny Bird and created their costumes as matching Big Bird’s, or rather his bird species. She still wasn’t sure how Granny Bird had managed to do it, but their costumes looked wonderful and Big Bird hadn’t left either alone for half of the morning. 

She made her way over to where the others were talking with one another. She appreciated Maria’s astronaut outfit. David had decided to wear an old Kojak costume. Linda had convinced Olivia to pair up as Kimberly and Crystal from Edge of Tomorrow in order to surprise Maria. Luis, to no one’s surprise, has decided to dress up like Zorro, though she’d heard mutterings from the other five as well as signing from Linda that they were just happy he wasn’t pretending to be Seňor Zero again. Bob made for a wonderful Harold Hill from Music Man. Gina sat back, her costume of Janice from Electric Mayhem looked pretty good and all of them laughed as she gave a deadpan delivery of “Fer sure” when David pushed her to do it. Penelope slid in next to them and David snickered.

“Dorothy?” He asked her. As usual, the speaker also signed so that Linda would know what was going on. Penelope rolled her eyes.

“Travis wanted to do a team costume. He convinced Donovan and Kathy to continue to ask me about it for the past month,” she answered with grin. “I decided to make sure they didn’t ask me again. Marco took after you for once, Gina, and opted out so I have no idea what he decided on. And Dorothy has Toto, so Shadow could participate.”

“Isn’t he a little big?” David argued.

“Well, I can’t carry him in my basket, but he’s still a lap dog,” Penelope said, brushing off the fact that Shadow was certainly not a ‘lap down’ unless the term meant ‘dog that got on the couch with Penelope and put his head in her lap’ which she certainly believed it meant. Besides, he fit into Shatter’s lap just fine when they visited the troll so that was close enough. Before they could continue, the door half slammed open. Penelope lazily looked over. “Don’t slam Mr. Hooper’s door.”

“You’re not funny, Boss,” Kathy said, folding her arms in her Scarecrow outfit. Donovan looked equally displeased as the Tin Man. Travis hung back, holding his tail as the Cowardly Lion. Marco, right behind him as James Bond was snickering with Paleontologist Miles, Queen of the World Gabi, and Racer Tarah.

“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was trying to make sure you don’t break Mr. Hooper’s things,” she told her. She looked over at the others. “Hello, Miles, Gabi, Tarah, Marco.”

“Hi Penelope,” they answered in unison.

“That isn’t what I mean and you know it!” Kathy said. “I meant this!”

“You wanted team costumes,” she answered. “And Shadow is part of the team so it had to include a dog.”

“How come you get to be Dorothy?” Donovan asked.

“Because Shadow is mostly my dog and I’m the lead agent and I said so,” she answered. “I didn’t make you do anything. I said that if you really wanted to do a team costume, I got to choose it. You all volunteered.”

“Before you told us what you were doing,” Kathy muttered. “Are you saying I don’t have a brain?”

“Not what I’m saying at all,” she answered, looking at her partner for help so she didn’t have to be reassuring and the like. As usual, Travis easily slipped into the roll and a hand on each of the younger agent’s shoulders.

“Penelope has watched The Wizard of Oz 243 times,” he said.

“I think you’re exaggerating,” she mentioned.

“I’m not,” he said proudly. “I’ve been counting. She likes it because and this is, uh, a Penelope quote ‘It took them the entire ridiculous movie to figure out that they had all of the things they were looking for. Dorothy pretty much figured it out and she’s like ten. And I’m still not mad at them because they didn’t decide to use it as an excuse to be brainless or heartless or not help their friends. Okay, maybe the lion, but he comes through when it counts. It’s sweet or whatever.’ Which is high praise from Penelope. And you are very smart, Kathy. You have a huge heart, Donovan. And I guess I have courage sometimes.”

“Yeah, remember when you rammed the car into that vampire?” Penelope asked.

“Well, you were in trouble and I didn’t get out of the car…” Travis started.

“Or when you had to tell the entire street that I was being ridiculous?” She asked. Travis gave her cheeky grin.

“Which time?” He asked.

“Watch it,” she answered. “Or when you called my boss an ‘ignorant potato’”

“Well he was being mean!” Travis argued. “And he was making you sad!”

“You’re brave. End of story,” Penelope answered.

“I’ll say he is,” Susan said, coming in behind them. Miles quickly gave his mother a hug as she entered. She easily hugged him back while pulling Tarah, Gabi, and Marco into hugs as well. Penelope hadn’t watched a lot of Doctor Who, but she knew enough to know that Susan pulled off the Fourth Doctor rather well. As Gordon followed her in, Penelope groaned.

“Why do you even have that?” She asked. Susan joined her in sighing.

“Because Owen let him keep it,” she answered.

“Why?” Penelope asked dryly. “I thought he liked us.”

“Maybe he likes me better,” Gordon said. “I enjoyed pretending to be a mad scientist. Especially since you, Susan, and Mr. Hooper said I couldn’t spend time with the real mad scientists.”

“Unsupervised. You can’t unsupervised, Gordon,” Penelope corrected him. “You accidentally convinced an entire group of mad scientists to bring back the dinosaurs. Section 1993 is a hassle to keep track of now. We’re worried what will happen if we leave you with them again.”

“I think robots,” Miles said in amusement. “Gabi insists talking plants.”

“We’ll never find out,” Mr. Hooper said, before they could start arguing. “Because Gordon is not allowed near them without Penelope being there the entire time. Susan and I agreed that Penelope won’t let him get away with anything.”

Susan nodded. “Travis is too permissive, Kathy would find it funny, Donovan said that science was his worst subject, and Marco would want to help.”

“So why does Gordon have it anyway?” Marco asked. Miles snorted.

“Because he got it when they went on the ‘here is why you need to control your magic’ adventure,” he answered. “Which is also why I take it Owen is coming back this year.”

“I made a few calls,” Penelope agreed. “Considering ‘Snickerdoodle’, ‘Flufferbomb’, ‘Tweety’, ‘Snoot’, and ‘Bubbles’, I think it’s time for him to give you the basics on how to handle yourself.”

“You trained us,” Donovan told her. “And you even said that we had it handled.”

“And you do,” Penelope said. “But you two also weren’t raised on Sesame Street by a swarm of protectors. Owen is a better choice. He knew exactly how to make his point with this group.”

“Why would he have needed to?” Marco asked. There was silence for a moment at that. Each of them were silently giving permission to relate the story, but they were also trying to figure out who should start it. Susan finally nodded and began.

“Well, it began after the fiasco of those six trying to make armor for Penelope and Travis,” Susan started, motioning to Bob, Olivia, Maria, Linda, Luis, and David. “Mr. Hooper decided that we just weren’t going to use magic anymore. We weren’t worried about not practicing and most of the arguments for us learning magic were because Linda and Bob wanted to play with said magic.”

“I wanted to play with magic. Linda wanted to see how magic worked,” Bob corrected. “And David, Maria, and Luis argued just as much.”

“I didn’t. But I also floated into a tree. And became a rock giant. And was invisible for a little bit…” Travis said, listing off the various ways their ineptitude with magic had affected him.

“I said that they should have had contingency plans,” Penelope said. “But to be fair, we were just starting out and I didn’t know exactly how much the magic affected them either. I just knew that it affected them in some way. I learned my own and taught Kathy and Donovan. You do not go out into the city as a supernatural agent with half-trained magic. Granted, that really should have been a ‘You’re a protector, Penelope’ clue rather than the ‘I think I’ve been on the Street too long because magic is happening’ thought I had, but we all have our problems. And I mistakenly figured that the rest of the Protectors would work on it once things settled down just for safety reasons. I was wrong about that too. What none of us were expecting was Gabi.”

Marco shifted his attention to Gabi who just grinned at him. “Turns out that having six of the protectors as your parents while also being born on Sesame Street made it so that I had a lot more magic than anyone thought. And I sort of used it on Miles.”

Marco looked at Miles who was bemused. “She made me stay five years old until she could catch up. She was a baby,” Miles explained. “Everyone just thought that Sesame Street made it happen for some reason until Owen showed up. He recognized that Gabi had a lot of magic and he could tell that the two of us were now the same age even though Mom had told him that I was born earlier. So, he decided to go talk to Mr. Hooper.”

“I went to yell at Harold,” Owen corrected from the doorway. The story was paused as he headed inside and was greeted accordingly with hugs and enthusiastic remarks. He made his way over to where Mr. Hooper and Harriet were, gently giving Harriet a kiss on the cheek and giving a quick hug to Mr. Hooper. As Mac and Willy joined them soon after, having convinced Big Bird to go play with Snuffy for a while, Owen pulled both of them into hugs as well before sitting next to Harriet. Once he was sitting down, Mr. Hooper looked at him.

“It was a loud discussion,” Mr. Hooper answered. Harriet rolled her eyes.

“Welcome to my introduction to Owen,” she said dryly.

“It was rude of me to get into a fight with Harold two minutes after meeting you,” Owen admitted.

“It was,” Mr. Hooper agreed.

“You argued back,” Owen said.

“Both of you are terrible and horrible at controlling your balance magics,” Harriet said firmly. Both of them moved to protest as Willy and Mac laughed.

“She’s not wrong,” Willy reminded them. Both men looked at each other, not really wanting to give up, but not wanting to upset Harriet either. Penelope found that to be some excellent control on both of their Balance Magics considering that Harriet would win anyway. Harriet always won. It didn’t matter that David could argue forever or that Mr. Hooper knew everything or that the rest of them were protectors. Harriet always won and that was why even though Penelope was decades old at this point, she wanted to be like Harriet when she grew up.

“And you,” Harriet said, looking at Owen with a discerning eye. “Did you forget it was Halloween and not pick up a costume?”

“I take it being an immortal magician where every day of my life is like Halloween still doesn’t count?” He asked.

“You ask me that every decade, Owen,” she said. Owen looked over at Mr. Hooper.

“Your girlfriend is scary,” he told him calmly.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Mr. Hooper said, rolling his eyes. As Harriet started to turn on him, he quickly added the second part. “Nor is she scary.”

Owen paused for a moment, grinned and flicked a hand, and created a perfect replica of Minneapolis’ outfit. “How’s that?” He asked. Bob grinned.

“How is my brother?” He asked.

“A lot of fun. Not as much fun as your uncle, but still fun. Your niece is a handful though,” he answered before turning to Linda. _“Linda, if you ever want to go to Atlantis, you’ll be happy to know that Samara made certain that they are fluent in American sign language there.”_

 _“I’ll keep that in mind.”_ Linda told him. Penelope had the feeling she knew where the next vacation spot was going to be.

“So Harold and I were having a ‘discussion’ about magic and using magic to the point where we didn’t hear Gordon and Penelope come in until they accidentally took sides. Gordon was horrified that Penelope had been using magic casually and Penelope was horrified that the rest of them hadn’t been. Long story short, we made a little wager putting our respective prides on the line. Harold didn’t want to use the kids like that, but Gordon firmly insisted, I promised that no one would be in danger, and they went to find the others. Harriet made me promise that ‘no one would get more hurt than they would on the street’.”

“That’s a little specific,” Marco answered. “Why not ‘no one will get hurt’?”

“Bob,” Owen said in amusement.

“Bob,” Harriet continued exasperatedly..

“Definitely Bob,” Penelope said gleefully. She took on the story for a bit. “Since I knew magic, I was going to stay out of it. The point that Owen was trying to make was it was important to learn the rules of magic so you don’t make mistakes. I knew it and going with meant knowing which rules they were probably going to be breaking which didn’t seem fair. I wanted to go but I didn't want to cheat especially with Owen imparting a pretty important less. Harriet thought it would be okay. We talked with Owen about it and he also felt it was okay. So, we managed to handle two problems: My wanting to go along to see what happened and Harriet's concern of them doing it without anyone having a clue what was going on. This made both of us feel better and Owen was happy to work with that.”

“So, you did it because you wanted to and to make Grandma Harriet happy?” Marco asked looking amused.

“I like Harriet,” Penelope answered, not about to look the older woman in the eyes at the moment. Just because she was better at this family thing didn’t mean she enjoyed this mushy stuff. “The point is, I went.”

“So you all went?” Marco asked.

“Of course not,” Penelope answered. “We needed someone to watch the street!”

“Penelope voluntold Donovan and Kathy to stay,” Gina said. “Which was a ridiculous plan, so I stayed too.”

Penelope could hear the underlying ‘because this entire thing was a ridiculous idea and everyone involved is crazy as usual’ which she just ignored as did the rest of them. Gordon picked up the story next. “So, we all got together and agreed to safety rules and terms of the bet. And Owen created a little adventure for us in a wooded area where the goal was to find the door which would have a portal home. We had one day to find it. It was the day before Halloween and it was agreed that Gabi, Miles, and Big Bird’s fun came first. Finally, with our permission and to make it more fun since Halloween was close, we got to turn into supernatural creatures. Which was great.”

“For most of you,” Penelope muttered. “I got turned into a bird. Again.”

“You agreed it was fine,” Owen said. “And you were the one who wanted a way to not tell them everything you knew the second they ran into trouble. Letting you be Harold’s familiar let you do that.”

Marco looked at her. “Didn’t you tell me that familiars can only talk to their wizard.”

“Yep,” Penelope answered.

“And that they had a need to stay within eyesight of said wizard?”

“Yep.”

“So, you were a…”

“Crow.”

“A crow that couldn’t talk to anyone else but Mr. Hooper and you had to stay near him instead of doing the lone wolf thing that Travis said you tried to do all the time?” He asked.

“I am very lone wolfish,” Penelope said. “Bob and Travis just don’t listen.”

Bob and Travis shared a look and Penelope just moved her arms slightly to let them both hug her. Travis looked at her. “You have the grumps.”

“Maybe I just like being grumpy,” she muttered, but didn’t protest other than that, shooing them off after a minute. “Anyway, other than requesting that I be a familiar, Owen planned out the others to bring out our magic more, though he didn’t tell them that’s what he was doing.”

Mr. Macintosh picked up where Penelope left off. “I was the Apple Tree Man for my magic with produce. Willy was a Sylph because he radiates calm and an air spirit represented that. Gordon was a mad scientist and Susan was Caladrius which was a beautiful bird that could heal people. Bob became a siren. Maria and Luis were both dwarves. David became a Jinn since they work in deals which was similar to David’s skill in law. Linda was a sphinx…”

 _“And Owen made it so that my thoughts were captioned.”_ Linda signed. _“I wasn’t limited like I was as a lion.”_

“It was one of the first spells I looked into after that first meeting,” Owen assured her. “I would have given it to you as a present if Penelope hadn’t gotten there first.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Penelope said. Mr. Hooper gave her a look.

“So it was someone else who ‘borrowed’ a magic book from their workplace, gave it to Linda, told her what page the spell was on, and ‘lost’ the page on flying because they knew Linda would look through the rest of the book?” He asked.

“Must have been,” she lied easily. Linda was trying to hide her own grin. When she got back to the office, she decided to look through her desk and see if she could recover that lost spell. It probably wasn’t safe to dump something in a drawer and try to forget about it especially now that Kathy, Donovan, and Marco knew it existed.

Mac continued before Mr. Hooper and Penelope’s discussion became louder and more disagreeable. “Olivia became a were-eagle so that her eyesight was even better. Travis was a vampire which didn’t really agree with him.”

“It was the only creature that is affected by math,” Owen answered. “And he was as harmless as the count.”

“I don’t think I’m good at being a vampire,” Travis said.

“You were adorable,” Maria assured her.

“I don’t think vampires are supposed to be adorable,” he said.

“The Count is,” Penelope answered. Travis thought about this for a minute and looked pleased. Penelope motioned for Mac to continue before someone else could have a minor crisis.

“And Mr. Hooper became a wizard,” he finished.

“Why a wizard?” Marco asked.

“Wizard means wise one. What better for Harold?” Owen asked with a certain amount of glee.

“Aren’t you a wizard?” Marco asked. Owen snorted.

“I’m a magician,” he answered. “Or a mage. I accept mage. If I was a ‘wise man’, I wouldn’t have turned half the street into a zoo when I met them. Besides, you’ve met me. I don’t think the term fits. Anyway, once I made sure everyone was okay in those forms for the moment, I left. And other than amplifying their own magic a bit, they were more like elaborate costumes.”

“Crow.”

“Except Penelope’s,” he with a slight laugh. She nodded though she looked just as amused as he was. She had asked him to do it, after all, even if she was a little put out that it was a bird again. “And if any of them needed to change back at any time, they could have done so. They just needed to say they wanted to and it would happen.”

“It wasn’t until we were in the middle of everything that we figured out what Owen had set up,” Luis told Marco. “There was a mechanical door that María and I were able to get open which would have been a shortcut to the end.”

“But I thought that I could do even better than that and make it so that entrance became the door we needed to find. Owen left it as a possibility and we ended up breaking it,” she said as Luis squeezed her shoulder. She gave Owen a slightly embarrassed, though mostly genuine smile. “Because when you obsess, you can lose yourself to the magic and forget to eat or sleep.”

“Then we faced a chimera,” Bob said as David pulled him to him. “And I thought I could handle it. Just calm it down. I put all of us to sleep by accident and we lost an hours because I couldn’t control how strong it was. So, it’s important to have control or you might accidentally cause a problem.”

“Owen made certain that there were plenty of animals who were injured. None of them needed the easy fix, but I could heal them so I did,” Susan said and Gordon wrapped his arms around her. “I had to turn into the bird and every time I did it, it wore me out and made it harder to turn back. It’s important to not overdo and to take care of yourself. I knew better, but sometimes it’s easy to forget.”

_“The last part was a library. Ten times bigger than my library and like with my library I knew what was in every book. I was able to tell them the way out. I was able to pull up information I never knew existed. And I didn’t want to leave.” Linda signed. Olivia leaned into her, not wanted to block the use of her hands, but letting her know she was there. “You need to control the magic, not let it control you. I had my family to get me out of there but it would have been a lot harder without them.”_

“You got through it,” Owen said calmly. “And before the deadline too.”

“That wasn’t the point you were trying to make,” Mr. Hooper said, giving Owen his due. The two of them had agreed on that day that while the Protectors had won on a technicality, Owen had won in spirit. Thus, they had decided upon a tie. “And fortunately, we caught on quickly. And I was able to accept what we needed to learn.”

“What’s that have to do with knowing everything?” Marco asked and Owen looked at him.

“With everyone else, it was fine letting their skilled magic get a little out of control. With Harold, I needed it to be his balance magic,” Owen said. Mr. Hooper snorted, but didn’t protest. At Marco’s confused look, Owen pushed forward. “If you knew everything, how would you react to something you didn’t know?”

“I thought I knew everything,” Marco said cheekily. Mr. Hooper didn’t look at him, but instead turned away embarrassed. “Oh.”

“His skilled magic is strong, so his balance magic is also strong. Just like I use magic easily, but I can’t keep track of time and when I do show up, it’s often terrible timing,” Owen answered. “And normally, I’d let him decide how to deal with it, but it was affecting you kids. And I was new to this ‘family’ thing at that point, but I was pretty sure ‘don’t let your family members accidentally possibly hurt themselves or others’ was something you were supposed to stop. And now Linda doesn’t disappear as often. And David is able to stop himself from arguing to a certain degree. And Gordon doesn’t need to argue science against magic as much. You have to get a handle on your skilled magic before you have any hope against slowing your balance magic.”

“So,” Marco said. “You’re going to teach me how to use my skilled magic?”

“He better,” Penelope grumbled. “Shadow and I are tired of your bringing strays back to the office.”

“Shadow is not,” Marco said. “He sits there and keeps an eye on them. Remember the baby mermaid that kept trying to get out of the kiddie pool? He kept putting her back.”

“Just because Shadow and I are willing to help you doesn’t mean we’re not tired of it,” Penelope argued back. She honestly had no idea how the black hound felt about it, but Travis, Kathy, and Donovan would be on Marco’s side so she was taking Shadow for her side. “Just learn how to use it so we can teach your to use your balance magic better. You get your the supernatural version of your mother’s ability to care for creatures and Bob’s ability to call them to you and I have to clean it up.”

Travis hugged her again. “Your grumps are back,” he told her playfully.

“I’d be less grumpy if you didn’t try to help him hide them. Badly. Throwing a sheet over something is not hiding it, Travis,” Penelope told him. Marco was just beaming at the idea of learning how to use it. Penelope relaxed. Owen would get him started, but it would still be an easy-going holiday.

They all headed outside for the beginning of the Halloween festivities. It wasn’t often that Owen visited for a holiday, but it was often a wonderful time. Owen looked over to the pile of painted pumpkins, each of them looking like some sort of animal, supernatural or otherwise. He waved a hand, animating them to the delight of the children. Pumpkin penguins, cats, dogs, dragons, and other assorted animals flooded the street. Purple, green, and orange lights flickered across buildings. The arbor became decorated and music played, creating a small dance area for the adults. Maria and Luis quickly took to it though Gabi and Tarah were on their heels. David beamed and traded off dancing with his husband and wife equally while waiting for the others to join them. Susan and Gordon joined them as did Bob and Linda. Olivia happily traded in with whomever wanted it. Mac and Willy hung back a bit, encouraging Big Bird to join the other adults who were happy to pull him in. Harriet, having little patience for Mr. Hooper’s reluctance, convinced him to join her. Kathy had grabbed Donovan while Travis politely offered to Marco so he wouldn’t feel left out. He needn’t have worried. No one would stay with their original partner anyway. Gina took on Big Bird and Miles nearly dragged Penelope herself out. Mac and Willy had both joined back in, as had Owen. Shadow and Barkley were lying down nearby.

It wasn’t long until she found herself dancing with a host of children, child monsters, and two enthusiastic snuffleupaguses. She felt a tap on her arm and met Harriet’s amused eyes. “Careful, Penelope. They might think you’re having fun,” she teased.

“I wouldn’t want that to happen,” she said, not bothering to hide her smile. “Where’s Mr. Hooper?”

“With Big Bird,” she answered and Penelope laughed as she nodded. “Now, what are you thinking?”

“That all of you are too nosy,” Penelope said without any malice. At Harriet’s unimpressed look, she continued. “And that Halloween reminds me of family. Christmas does too, of course, but we had to work together that year. So family. Happy now?”

“Travis is right,” Harriet said. “You definitely have the grumps.”

“I’m downright chipper,” Penelope said dryly.

“Then I think your definition doesn’t match mine,” she teased.

“Yeah, yeah. Happy Halloween,” Penelope said.

“Penelope?” Harriet said. “Thank you for being willing to be a crow to make me happy.”

“Well it’s not like you _knew_ that would happen,” she said. “And it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Harriet moved to protest, but decided against it. She pulled the younger woman into a quick hug before dancing with David. Penelope went back to focusing on the children. They were easier to talk to and didn’t say awkward things and try to make her feel things. Yes, that was far better. She ignored that she was, of course, lying to herself and that she enjoyed how happy everyone was. She also ignored that she was happy to be there with them. 

She pulled back for just a moment and looked at Shadow who nudged her hand. “Only on Sesame Street,” she told him softly. “Would it be fitting to say that we’re somewhere over the rainbow and there’s no place like home without it being a contradiction.”

Shadow gave a short woof in agreement. The pumpkins raced with the children, the lights flickered across the walls, the majority of the street danced. Costumes, candy, and decorations were spread across the Street itself. It was home and it was Halloween and both of those things were perfect.


End file.
